Stevenage manufacturing history

 This agricultural community on the Great North Road just outside London became prosperous from the business generated by coaches stopping for refreshment. The mid nineteenth century saw the arrival of the Great Northern Railway which encouraged the building of homes for those working in London. The late nineteenth century witnessed the arrival of an organisation very much of its time. The time was marked by the spread of education to the population as a whole and this demanded resource in the form of furniture, books, laboratory equipment and the general supplies a school needs in order to function. It was the Educational Supply Association and would remain the town’s most significant employer until after the Second World War. Another old town company was Hertfordshire Knitting known for its provision for the employment of women. Yet another was Vincent HRD Motorcycles.

Stevenage was perfectly placed to become one of the New Towns to be designated under the 1946 Act. The first employer to be tempted to the new town was Geo. W. King from Hitchin. They manufactured cranes and hoists and would later become part of TI plc. Kings were followed in 1952 by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics, ICI and Pye Ether a manufacturer of controls and owned by Pye Radio. Next was a longer term resident of old Stevenage W.H. Saunders an electronics company which later became part of Marconi. There followed ICL, Kodak, Bowater Packaging, English Electric aircraft and Mentmore Manufacturing which came from Hackney and would become Platignum makers of writing implements. English Electric became part of the British Aircraft Corporation which would merge with Hawker Siddeley aircraft to become British Aerospace.

This aviation capability has now become MBDA manufacturer of complex weapon systems and Airbus Defence and Space which manufactures space vehicles, satellites and related equipment giving Stevenage the nickname Space City. The science credentials of the town are underling by GSK R&D Hub, one of only two worldwide.

Further reading :

• Margaret Ashby, Stevenage: History and Guide (Dover: Alan Sutton, 1994)
• Margaret Ashby, Stevenage Past (Chichester: Phillimore, 1995)

Hemel Hempstead manufacturing history

 The site of Hemel Hempstead has revealed Roman remains and the town not only was prosperous but had a proud heritage. So to be identified as a potential new town was not particularly welcome. The town enjoyed the employment of its large and long standing paper manufacturing business, John Dickinson, at Apsley Mill. I wrote about this in the context of nineteenth century publishing in my book Charlotte Bronte's Devotee about the man who discovered her genius. John Dickinson would go from strength to strength and was not alone in local manufacturing although much larger probably than the others taken together.

The designation as a new town was proposed in 1947 along with a first plan. Argument raged for five years until a final plan was agreed in 1952. Scott Hastie's and Lynne Fletcher's book Hemel Hempstead The story of New Town Development 1947-1997 is particularly helpful since it covers not only the first waive of industry but also the transition from manufacturing to high tech and service industries.

The long term prosperity of the town had a good deal to do with communications. The canal arrived in 1797 following by the railway in 1837. Now the M1 motorway passes nearby and has an exit direct to the industrial area. The M25 is also close and provides vital connectivity to London's airports but also the seaports of the southeast. Anyone driving through Hemel and unfamiliar with it may well be bemused by the Plough (or Magic) roundabout shown in the image.

New industry began to take units in the first designated area on Maylands Avenue and first off the block was the Central Tool and Equipment Company, a manufacturer of milling machines. There followed another engineering company, Alford and Alder, which supplied the motor industry. It seems that neither company survived after the sixties. Rolls Razor, another early arrival, had a colourful end to its production of razors when it went into the direct selling of washing machines and I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Addressograph Multigraph, an American company, moved from Cricklewood and employed 800 people. The largest of the early factories was for Rotax which later became part of Lucas Aerospace and of which I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines. Multicore Solders moved from Slough in 1952; I certainly remember using their product.

Following a further number of smaller companies, the big move was the arrival of Kodak in 1957 with their colour film processing plant. Kodak increased its presence in the town over the years until the move of colour wprocessing to France and Germany in 1985. Another large arrival was Dexion with storage systems. Hastie and Fletcher pause in 1961 to list the industries then represented in the town:

• office machinery
• photographic equipment and materials
• clothing
• paper moulding
• scientific laboratory apparatus
• electronic equipment
• rubberised goods including hot water bottles
• surgical appliances
• accumulators
• printing equipment

1962 witnessed the arrival of a big employer, although not wholly a manufacturer, BP Oil. The American Du Pont company followed as did the Swedish Atlas Copco.

The gradual move to services is evidenced by the arrival of BOC Transhield for the transport of Marks & Spencer food products and the move to higher tech by Honeywell Ltd, Epson, Apple, ACT, Crosfield Electronics and McDonnell Douglas. Crosfield made electronic equipment for the graphic arts industry.

Hastie and Fletcher again pause this time to look at the 1991 census which reveals a total workforce of approximately 65,000 comprising 58% classified as professional, managerial or office based and only 17% working in manufacturing.

A third stage in Hemel's Development followed the closure of Kodak's film processing and also Lucas Aerospace providing sites for Dixons Head Office (then the high street retailer) and the Rank Organisation's leisure business.

Further reading:

• Scott Hastie and Lynne Fletcher, Hemel Hempstead: The story of New Town Development 1947-1997 (Hemel Hempstead: Dacorum Borough Council, 1997)

Welwyn Garden city Manufacturing History

 The founders of Welwyn had the experience of Letchworth Garden City, built some twenty years earlier, to fall back on. Work began in 1920 and the first manufacturing companies soon followed.

Of most enduring importance was Shredded Wheat, a Canadian company which had set up in Britain in 1908 in London's Aldwych. It was said that the company decided to take a considerable chance by moving to the new Garden City. Work started on the first three-storey block in 1924 and really very soon the factory was operating with great success. The business prospered and in 1928 was bought by Nabisco which added further products including Shreddies.

The next name that would become equally well known was Murphy which began in a garage making radios. As I wrote in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World, demand for radios was strong and so the company grew and by the thirties had five hundred employees producing 33,000 radios a year. By 1939 it was one of the six biggest manufacturers of radios in the world. It was bought by the Rank Organisation in 1962 and in 1969 moved production to Ware and the premises was taken by Rank Xerox with a workforce of 1,400.

Nivea runs a close third. Beiersdorf took premises in Bessemer Road in 1931 and manufactured Nivea products. They then became Herts Pharmaceutical Company before becoming part of Smith + Nephew.

A big win for Welwyn was when they persuaded the American Norton Grinding Wheels to build what was then the largest factory in the town in 1931. Norton prospered in Welwyn until 1982 when manufacturing was moved abroad. Norton was another company bought by the French St Gobain, a former client of mine, and I recall a ceramics plant in Stoke on Trent.

Another American company, Lincoln Electric, began production in Welwyn in 1935. It later became part of GKN.

Under the New Towns Act of 1946, Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield were to be two distinct towns. In practice they are so close as to be a single conurbation. Sir Geoffrey de Havilland moved his aircraft company to Hatfield from Edgware in 1934. It became by a long way that town's largest employer. I tell its story in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines. The company was famous for the Mosquito aircraft in the Second World War and the first commercial jet, The Comet, in the fifties.

Plastics came to Welwyn in 1938 when ICI created its Plastics Division and took a 10 acre site in Welwyn. In the next ten years it became the largest producer of plastics in the Commonwealth. In the fifites ICI relocated plastics to the north of England and the Welwyn site refocused on research.

Staying with chemicals, Hoffman La Roche manufactured Redoxin and then Librium and Valium. Smith Kline and French moved from Camberwell in 1939 and built the then tallest building in the town.

Other manufacturers include the Danish Bacon company, Allied Bakeries, Knorr soup and Suchard confectioners.

Further reading:

• Roger Filler, A History of Welwyn Garden City (Chichester: Phillimore, 1986)
• Hatfield and its people Pt 12 The Twentieth Century (The Hatfield WEA, 1964)